The Shot Heard 'Round The World
by LGCoffeeAddict
Summary: Ninth in the Love Game series. He was whimpering, mumbling. At one point, he hallucinated Izzie in Lexie's place. He didn't even know why. He wasn't even thinking of Izzie. At all. Then another name slipped past his chapped lips. "Addison…"
1. Chapter 1

The Shot Heard 'Round the World  
Ninth in the **Love Game** series

A **Grey's Anatomy** fic by Gigi

**Disclaimer: I didn't own anything yesterday, so why would that have changed in twenty-four hours?**

**A/N: As you know, I hate odd numbers, and right now I'm at 41 fics. That **_**needs**_** to change, and I just started a multi-chapter fic, so I'm not going to start another one. Then I realized I hadn't added another fic to the Love Game series since February, so that was the perfect opportunity! **

**A/N2: STOP READING RIGHT NOW IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE GREY'S ANATOMY SEASON 6 FINALE AND DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED. Unless you're Juli, who will inevitably know what happens anyway, even if she hasn't seen it in three years. This takes place during the finale of Grey's and just after the Private Practice finale. Once again, like my last started fic, Addison broke up with Pete (-sob-) but did **_**not**_** sleep with Sam.**

Pain.

Pain like he'd never experienced.

Pain like he wished he'd be able to go through life without experiencing.

He couldn't help but scream. The pain was so bad he lost control of his jaw and vocal chords; there was no way in hell he could listen to Lexie and be _quiet_. He'd been _shot_! If he was quiet, he was dead.

He'd lost a lot of blood. Blackness was encroaching into his eyesight and fogging up his brain. He wasn't screaming anymore. He was whimpering, mumbling. At one point, he hallucinated Izzie in Lexie's place. He didn't even know why. He wasn't even thinking of Izzie. At all.

Then another name slipped past his chapped lips.

"Addison…"

Mark Sloan, who was at the moment trying to save Karev's life, whipped his head around at the sound of Addison's name to stare at Karev. "Damn, I forgot about that," he grumbled underneath his breath. "First, her, now Lexie. Karev, why can't you find your own women?"

"What?" Lexie asked. She heard Alex whisper a woman's name that wasn't hers or Izzie's. "Addison?"

"Addison, I'm sorry," Alex whispered hoarsely.

"_Addison_?" Lexie demanded. She wasn't even sure if she loved Alex, but she said it, hoping that on some level, he loved her, that hearing her say she loved him would somehow give him the strength to fight. To live. Hearing him talk to other women as if leaving them was the biggest mistake of his life…well, that hurt her pride a little bit.

"His old boss," Mark grunted, applying pressure to the gunshot wound in Alex's side.

"Why is Alex talking to her now?"

"Addison, I am so sorry for what I did," Alex continued, not even registering that Lexie was interrogating Mark. "I'm sorry for the way I treated you. I'm sorry I couldn't be that guy who barbecues and plays catch with the kids." He coughed and subsided.

Mark and Lexie stood stock still, staring at the resident in shock. "Did he just say kids?" Lexie croaked incredulously. "As in his and _Addison_'s kids?" Mark couldn't even say anything. He looked like he'd seen a ghost. "Mark, what the hell happened between him and Addison?"

"Nothing that major, I didn't think," Mark sputtered. "They slept together once, and then the next day Addison left for a week to visit her friends in LA. She moved there a month later." He stopped to take a gulp. "I never thought he was in love with her."

Lexie hesitated a little before asking her last question, "Are you still in love with her?"

Mark stopped to think for a little bit while he cleaned up some blood from the wound site for better visibility. "I still love her, yeah. I fell for her hard, and that isn't something you just forget," he admitted, hating the fact that he was making Lexie's face crumple up just a little bit. "I fell in love with her about a month after she started dating Derek, and eleven years later I finally told her—and it blew up in both our faces."

"Oh," Lexie whispered. She didn't know what else she could say.

"I'm not still in love with her," Mark clarified. Lexie looked up with a profound sense of confusion written all over her face. "I still love her, and I always will, probably. But I'm not _in_ love with her anymore."

Lexie nodded to herself, finally understanding what he meant, and looked back to her injured boyfriend. Alex was still hallucinating.

"I wish I hadn't said those things, Addison," he rasped. "I didn't mean them. I didn't mean to drive you away. I… I think I fell in love with you while you were my boss, and I was afraid about what that meant." A gulp, and then he said, "You're way out of my league, Addison, and I—" a fit of coughing interrupted his confession, and suddenly his bullet wound started bleeding faster than before.

Now, all Lexie and Mark were focusing on was saving Alex's life, but right next to their desperate hopes that the shooter wouldn't find them in their minds sat another hope—a hope that Alex's words were both exaggerations and not reciprocated by a certain redhead.

**8D**

Addison wanted nothing more than to crawl under her comfortable down covers and cry. She felt like she'd been through a war—and there had been casualties. An orphan created, a father and friend killed, a heart broken… _her_ heart broken. It was right for her to end things with Pete—she knew that—but only because there was no way she'd be able to survive loving a man who was in love with someone else for the second… third time.

After washing her face for the fourth time—she hated the feeling of dried tears on her face—Addison buried her face in a soft white towel and willed herself not to cry anymore. There were plenty of positive things about the night, too. Maya was still alive, and she had a healthy baby girl. Charlotte and Cooper got engaged. Why couldn't she focus on the good things? Why did she have this need to focus on the fact that she was, once again, a man's second choice?

And the kicker was that she _always_ had the guy _first_! As juvenile as it sounded, even to herself, it was true. She was with Derek—hell, she'd been _married_ to him—before he was with Meredith, and he left her for the skinny blonde twelve-year-old. She fell for Karev—and though his actions too often said otherwise, she had a feeling he wanted her, too—before Ava was anywhere near being in the picture. And now Pete. She'd had a thing with him when she first moved to LA, a full _year_ before he ever saw Violet in any sort of non-platonic fashion.

Sometimes, she wished she still loved Mark; he'd always put her first in his heart—when he wasn't cheating on her. But that thought made her realize her count was off. Pete was the _fourth_ man who had chosen someone else over her. Mark did it when he came to LA for Sloan's surgery—he chose Lexie Grey, yet _another_ Grey to foil her chances at happiness, over her.

The sound of the phone ringing made Addison jerk her head up from the towel in surprise. God, she was jumpy today, but car crashes and meltdowns and breakups did that to a person. _The good. Focus on the _good_ stuff for once in your life, Addison_, she urged herself. _Engagements, births, you freaking making up with your best friend!_

She tried to shake herself out of her funk long enough to answer the phone. "Hello?"

"Addie, I need you to distract me," Richard's voice came through the receiver with an almost tangible thread of suppressed panic pulsing within it.

"Why? What's wrong?"

"There's a shooter in my hospital," he announced, pacing back and forth just outside the police boundaries around Seattle Grace Hospital.

Addison dropped her towel. "_What_?" she demanded, that same thread of panic shining through in her own voice. "A shooter? Has anyone been hurt?"

"Too many people. Way too many," Richard wheezed. All this stress wasn't good for him. All he wanted was a stiff drink, but he was sixty days sober, and he'd die inside if he knew he was out drinking when people in _his_ hospital were _dying_. So he needed someone to distract him, but all those he cared about who were still a part of his life were in the hospital, in danger. All but one.

"Who? Do you know?"

"All I know is what I overheard on the police scanner, and, Addie, it's not good," Richard prefaced. "A few nurses are dead, and so is Dr. Reed from Mercy West. I heard Bailey's voice, and she was yelling about how Dr. Percy, who's also from Mercy West, had been shot. I don't know if he's still alive."

"Anyone else?" Addison crossed her fingers. "What about from Seattle Grace? Who is the shooter after?"

"Mark's voice came through the scanner, too. He's fine, but he said Karev has a GSW to the chest." Richard thought he heard an intake of breath from the other side of the line, but he assumed it was just from hearing her old intern, someone she _knew_, had been shot. Well, she was going to have a hell of a time digesting the next name. "The shooter was the husband of a patient of mine, Addie. I need you to know that, otherwise it _really_ won't make any sense."

Addison lowered the hand from her agape mouth—she didn't remember putting it there after she heard the word "Karev" and "GSW" in the same sentence—long enough to ask in a shaky voice, "What won't?"

"We declared his wife brain-dead and took her off life support, and he's out for the two doctors he thinks are responsible for killing her. I was out to lunch, so I'm safe…but he found the other one. Addie," he paused for a deep breath before telling her the final name, "he shot Derek."

Addison had gone numb. Karev and Derek were both shot, were both in grave danger of dying, and Addison sat safe in her LA home, too self-absorbed in her own drama to realize there was an even bigger tragedy occurring than her love life. Ironically enough, this tragedy was _still_ entangled in her love life. Her ex-husband and her ex…thing had been shot.

Her mind then went to a moment in the NICU of Seattle Grace, when she caught Alex—Karev—staring at the babies for the first time. That wasn't the first time he'd opened up to her, but it had been one of the more intimate conversations. The thought of him not being able to stare at babies again made Addison feel as if someone was gripping her heart in his fist and squeezing harder and harder.

Her mind then flashed back to the memory from med school when Derek finally told her how his father died. Now he was facing the same fate…

"Addie, Addie!" Richard's voice rang in her ear. "I need you to breathe. Calm down, Addie."

She was hyperventilating. She didn't even register that she was hyperventilating until Richard's voice brought her back to the present. "I'm going to see you in a few hours, okay?" she said when she finally got her breathing under control.

"What?"

"I'm on my way right now," Addison announced, bounding up from the bed she didn't remember sinking onto, and stuffing everything in sight into a boho bag, just enough to get her through the night. "I mean, hopefully, the shooter part of the equation will be solved by the time I get there, but I can't sit here, knowing that…" she paused for a raggedy breath. She couldn't even say either of their names. "…knowing that people I've known for years are dying without trying to help in the smallest bit. I'll see you soon, Richard."

Addison grabbed her keys and darted out the door, leaving her phone on the floor next to the towel.

**A/N: So this is a unique part of the Love Game Series. It's a two-shot! Enjoy it, but in order for you to get that elusive second half, you're going to need to do just one little thing. REVIEW!**


	2. Chapter 2

The Shot Heard 'Round the World

Ninth in the **Love Game** series

A **Grey's Anatomy** fic by Gigi

**Disclaimer: I didn't own anything yesterday, so why would that have changed in twenty-four hours?**

Part II

**A/N: So I'm just trying to figure this out. One, thank you for all the kind reviews! Two, is it just the promise of another chapter that draws people to review more? I got twice as many reviews for this chapter than I have for most of my other Love Game fics. I'm just curious, but I'm not soliciting reviews anymore than normal. Don't worry, no pressure here! Enjoy this second half!**

**A/N 2: So I just realized there is a bit of a time discrepancy, in that SGH was in the day and the car crash was at night, so I'm just going to take some common sense deductions to clarify that the car crash stuff went through the night and into the next day, which is why Addison was crying in the afternoon and not at night. Okay, **_**now**_** enjoy!**

By the time Addison came rushing up to the doors of Seattle Grace Hospital—she never called it by its new merged name with Mercy West—the crisis had been resolved, but there were plenty of people bustling around trying to clean up the mess, both literally and physically—the bullet wound messes.

There was still a lot of blood all over, on the floors, the walls and the countertops. She cringed inwardly at the very likely possibility that some of that blood could be Derek's… or Alex's, she added after a second.

Addison couldn't keep standing there in the lobby like a statue. If she did, she'd go crazy. She stopped the first nurse she could find and asked where Derek was, and she was halfway down the hall before the nurse even finished her sentence.

As she power-walked her way through the halls of the hospital, Addison tried to mentally brace herself for what she might see when she finally reached her ex-husband's room. The fact that he still had a room was a good sign. He was still alive, at least. But as to what state he would be in, Addison couldn't even make herself finish that train of thought.

At long last, she approached the room. The blinds were closed, so she _really_ had no idea what she would walk in on. With one last deep breath, Addison steeled herself to knock on the door, but she couldn't make her fist move anymore past holding it up to the wood. The magnitude of the day's events came crashing down on her, from the car crash in LA to the phone call from Richard and the sights she had already seen of the aftermath of the shooting. She squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as they would go and leaned her forehead on the door in front of her, soft sobs racking her body.

She stood there like that for a few minutes, crying for the fifth time that day, before she straightened herself and tried her best to compose her features and wipe her cheeks. Drawing a deep, shuddering breath, this time she succeeded in knocking quietly on the door. She pushed it open and poked her head into the room, finding it empty save for Derek, who lay still on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Her eyes traveled down to the enormous bandages covering his chest, and she quickly checked his stats on the monitors before actually entering the hospital room.

"Hi," she greeted shakily.

Slowly, Derek turned his head so that he could confirm the voice he heard. Addison knew that, if it hadn't taken him so much effort to turn his head just the once, he would have done a double take at seeing his redheaded ex-wife, who lived in LA, standing there. "I'm not hallucinating, am I?" he croaked. "If I am, I'm a whole lot worse than I thought I was."

A small smile quirked Addison's lips upward. "I can't believe you, of all people, are still able to make a joke after all of this," she mused. Taking a tentative step forward, she answered his question, "No, you're not hallucinating."

"It's really good to see you, Addie," Derek declared fondly. "I guess all this reminds you of med school?"

"Derek, I know you honored and loved your father, but did you really have to be exactly like him in everything?" Addison demanded, only half-joking. A hint of distress entered her voice. "Why'd you have to go and get yourself shot?"

An odd noise escaped his throat that Addison suspected was a chuckle. "I didn't exactly choose this to happen to me, Addie," he soothed. "Sit down." Addison was still standing only a step inside the room, but at his request, she pulled up a rolling stool to his bedside and grasped his hand as tightly as she could.

"I know you didn't choose this, but too much has happened today for me not to get a little hysterical," she confessed. At a questioning look from her bedridden companion, she expanded, "As if this shooting wasn't enough, Maya went into labor and got into a car crash on her way to the hospital."

"What?" Derek whipped his head up so quickly he had to squeeze his eyes closed as a dizziness spell overcame him.

"Watch it!" Addison commanded, reaching to softly guide his head back onto the pillow. "Don't do that again." As if to make sure that it didn't, she kept her hand on his hair, half-stroking and half-holding it down.

"Is she okay?"

"Eventually, yes, but she almost lost the baby and the ability to walk. The fact that she can still walk is all thanks to your sister, by the way," Addison credited. Another look of surprise flashed across Derek's face. "Oh, you didn't know Amelia Shepherd is down in LA, now?" She couldn't help the slightly dry frustration from entering her voice.

"No, I didn't," he denied grumpily. "Is the baby okay?"

Addison nodded. "Yeah, I delivered her once Amelia finished getting all the glass shards out of her spinal cord and reinforcing her damaged vertebrae." Her face became much more sober. "But Dell was sort of like my apprentice. He was a midwife, and Maya was his patient. He was driving her to the hospital when some guy drove into them. And he…" She had to stop and draw in another shuddering breath. "He didn't make it."

"Aw, Addie, I'm so sorry," Derek offered. "One of your former apprentices isn't doing too hot, either. Karev was one of the first to be shot."

Addison was about to nod and say she had heard about him when one word caught her ear. "Was?" she choked. "He's not… is he?"

"I honestly don't know," Derek answered. "He was taken to Seattle Presbyterian before the hospital had been cleared."

"Oh." Addison leaned back and tried to relax her muscles. She focused on the curly brown locks she was fiddling with, every now and then running her fingers through them. "Derek?"

"Yes, Addie?" Derek's voice was much softer now than it had been when he first saw her. He was running out of energy.

"Thank you for not dying," she whispered sincerely, a solitary tear escaping her eye and dropping onto the hand she grasped.

**8D**

An hour after her arrival at Seattle Grace found Addison leaving the hospital with as much haste as three-inch heels would allow her without making her look like a complete idiot. Ducking into her rented car, she quickly fastened her seatbelt and backed out of her parking spot—carefully, after what she dealt with back home—before starting toward Seattle Presbyterian Hospital to see a certain former intern. She _would_ see him. She _would_.

**8D**

Lexie sat beside Alex's bed, fidgeting in her chair until his eyes finally fluttered open. He knew where he was now, and he was as lucid as he could be with a very large needle in his arm that was continually restoring his platelet count. Lucid enough that Lexie finally spoke. "I understand why you'd think of Izzie," she announced, getting his attention.

"What?" Alex had no idea about the things he'd said during his hallucinations, which he didn't remember having.

Lexie just kept going, but that was Lexie's way. She babbled. A lot. She was very much like her sister that way. "I get Izzie. She was your wife and all, but I tell you I love you and you go on and on about your old boss?"

"I—what did I do?" Alex asked in confusion, trying to keep up.

"You said Addison's name," Lexie responded.

"What? When?" Everything was like a fog after he had gotten on the elevator.

"When Mark and I were trying to save you in the conference room," Lexie explained, riling herself up more and more. "You thought I was Izzie, which is understandable, but then you started apologizing and professing your love for _Addison_? How the hell do you think that made me feel? Me, your current girlfriend who just told you she loved you?"

Alex didn't answer. He just stared past Lexie's shoulder as if seeing a ghost. "Am I hallucinating again?"

"What?" Lexie turned around in her seat to see a tall redhead standing in the doorway, shock and worry battling each other on her face. Addison.

For some reason, a gush of air escaped Addison's throat as she commented softly, "That's the second time I've gotten that today. Is seeing me here so bizarre that everybody thinks their brain isn't functioning correctly?"

"Um, hi, Dr. Montgomery," Lexie greeted belatedly, blushing bright red as she stood. No doubt, she had overheard her tirade to Alex. It almost felt as if she had been caught trash-talking her by calling her Addison.

"Little Grey," she responded. She diverted her attention to Karev, who was still staring at her as if he didn't really believe she was there. "Is that true, Karev? Did she tell you she loved you and then you prattled on about other women?"

Alex's mouth snapped shut in surprise. "How the hell would I know? I don't remember any of it!" he exclaimed defensively.

Addison smiled slightly. For a second there, she'd forgotten he was shot or that any time had passed by. For a second there, he was her intern again. She cocked her head and lost herself in his chocolate—albeit surprised—eyes for a few moments. "Dr. Grey, Mark is pacing back and forth outside waiting to talk to you, and the only other time he did that was for me."

"What does that mean?" Lexie asked tentatively.

Addison heaved a sympathetic sigh and fingered the resident's newly blonde hair. "It means he's still in love with you," she smiled. "And if your hair is anything to go by, you still have feelings for him, too."

"My hair?"

"You needed a change after you broke up with him," Addison said knowingly. "But if you were really over him, you'd have let your hair go back to normal." Lexie hesitated, obviously realizing the truth behind the older woman's words. "You still love him, don't you?" After a moment, she nodded slowly, completely forgetting Alex was in the room and was watching all of this. "Then go talk to him."

Addison waited for a little while after Lexie had left the room before she turned and fully took in the state Alex was in. He looked very much like Derek did, only he was more heavily bandaged on the left side of his chest. "Sorry about that," she apologized, gesturing towards outside the room.

"I don't actually remember her telling me she loved me, so…" Alex trailed off. He felt the need to explain himself to his former boss, who was still standing uncertainly in the middle of the room. "I was being a duck."

"Excuse me?" Addison turned her head to the side and tilted it a tad almost as if she was trying to hear him better, with her lips pursed and her eyebrows slightly furrowed in confusion. Alex remembered that expression all too well. In that instant, it was three years ago again.

"I was trying to move on from my train wreck of a marriage, and I figured if I walked like a duck and talked like a duck, that I would eventually become a duck." It had made more sense before. Now it just sounded ridiculous, even to himself.

To his surprise, Addison nodded thoughtfully. "You were being a duck." Her head was cocked to the side again, considering. Then she seemed to realize their situation once more. "How are you feeling?" she inquires carefully. She walked forward and took the recently vacated seat beside his bed and leaned back on the chair with a self-deprecating laugh. "That sounds so stupid, to ask someone who was just shot how they're feeling. But 'Are you okay?' just sounded imbecilic. Obviously, you're not okay, but I don't know exactly how you're feeling, and suddenly, knowing how you're feeling is pretty much all I can think of, so how are you feeling?"

"Well, it kind of hurts when I breathe, but right now, I'm strangely okay," Alex answered honestly, looking up into the worried pale blue eyes of the woman sitting next to him.

Addison bit her lip. When she'd walked in, she heard Lexie demanding to know why he was hallucinating about her, and how he had said he loved her. Addison wanted nothing more than to ask him about that, but he didn't seem to remember anything about that. So she settled for, "Good."

They sat there in silence for a long time, until finally Alex couldn't take it anymore. "I missed you," he admitted.

Addison's head whipped up at those three words. "What?"

"After you left," he expanded. "I really missed you." He laughed to himself. "I actually made the Chief put me on your case when you came up for that surgery two years ago."

"That's, um," Addison choked. "That's nice to hear, given how we left things. I've missed you, too."

"I'm really sorry about that, Addison," Alex professed. He didn't know it, but he was reenacting his hallucination with Addison sitting in front of him. "I'm sorry I treated you like that. You didn't deserve it." Addison stayed silent. Her mind was drawing a blank. She had no idea what to say, so he just kept going. "I didn't mean those things I said. I didn't mean to drive you away. You're way out of my league, and I know it's no excuse, but I was scared that I was even thinking of you like that."

Her breath had caught in her throat. There it was. There was that apology she had wanted for three years so she could finally get some closure from the man. But she realized the last thing she wanted was closure. Slowly, she leaned forward and intertwined her fingers with his on the bed. "Thank you, Alex," she whispered. She wasn't sure her voice would stay steady if she spoke at a higher volume. They fell quiet once again, but this time Addison was the one to break the silence. "Are you still scared?"

Alex's eyes suddenly became much more aware. Was she…? "Terrified," he said truthfully, "but I don't want to run away again."

"Well, technically I was the one who did the running," Addison corrected.

"I thought you walked," Alex shot back with a smirk.

"Well, it turns out, they aren't too different," she concluded, sharing his amusement. This time the silence wasn't strained. It was comfortable, amicable, even fond. "You know, I had this boyfriend who was a SWAT," she started.

Alex had no idea where she was going. "And?" he prodded.

"And he got shot on duty while we were dating," Addison continued. "I know how to take care of a recovering GSW victim. I had a lot of practice with Kevin." A bright, beautiful smile bloomed on her face as she leaned in.

"Good to know." Alex smiled back, and his smile grew bigger and bigger the closer Addison's face came to his, so big that when their lips finally touched, it was more the meeting of two delighted grins, which was enough for now. He was still recovering, after all. Gentleness was key.

Not so gentle would come later.

**A/N: So what do you think? This was 2, 572 words, so I hope you appreciated this unique Love Game series installment. I have no idea if you appreciated it, however, unless you REVIEW!**


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